Even if significant swaths of the government were to shut down, which will not happen, it would be only temporary. The long-term trajectory of government spending and debt has been and likely will continue to be up.

It’s also apparently a split-personality problem. Here’s then-Senator Barack Obama on raising the government’s debt ceiling during a floor speech he gave in 2006: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

Here’s Obama barely two weeks ago in a speech before the Business Roundtable: “Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up, Congress. It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved.”

Apparently the final destination of “the buck” Obama talked about in 2006 moved to Capitol Hill when he moved into the White House.

This shutdown isn’t a fight about the direction of government. It’s about the speed of government growth. Neither of the major political parties shows any evidence of really wanting to shrink government, because that would reduce their own power.